Pictures, etc

I took the day, first getting Dawson's pics from Christmas, getting pictures organized and posted in various places. Monte left this morning with Heather and Will - to drive them home to Texas since Bill is soon to come home from Iraq. I needed to get all the pictures we've taken of them since their return in early November onto Heather's computer, which I finally did early this morning. I took more movie clips with my little camera of Will's doings this time. These little milestones need capturing: like first foods, first sounds and babbling, first spinning and rolling on the floor and sitting and bouncing wildly in bouncy seat ... and then, the night before Christmas eve, before going to bed, I took a picture of the floor in front of the Christmas tree - lots of bits of ripped paper.

We copied some pictures of Bill and Bill and Heather together for Will to look at, us pointing and saying, "Mamma ... Dadda". We'd occasionally let him hold them. He's unusual in not putting everything in his mouth - more wanting to look at and analyze. So the pictures lasted a long time. We'd occasionally hear him saying, "Dadda, dadda ..." Don't know if he really gets the connection, but still ... Will did start ripping things. I let him recently have some catalogs, you know, those thousands that come in the mail, and let him look at and eventually rip. I thought it might get him ready for his first Christmas.

We did get Will a couple presents to easily rip open. Travis tried to initially show him how. We went to Travis and Sarah's Christmas Eve after singing carols before two services at our church, and spent the night. After opening presents we had our traditional brunch of Aebleskivers (see last December for pictures and recipe).

After all the cooking and tie-dying and knitting and company and getting Heather ready to go back home, I'm vegging out for awhile and NOT cooking. I'm not quite home alone though. I've not titled this post yet. I could title it "Velveteen House" again as Dawson and friends are currently watching a movie in our renovated laundry room (instead of his bedroom like they've done in the past). A friend of his made enchiladas and brought them for their supper (I've also sworn off of eating for awhile too!). They've been here for two days+. Playing games, welding/forging, cooking and eating and cleaning up the kitchen ... and Dawson had Aaron and Phil cut and chop and stack firewood today to pay for New Years "Skate the Lake" tickets he bought them. Which means a bunch of them are going to Evergreen Lake tomorrow evening till after midnight to ice skate and watch fireworks and returning here to sleep in.

This post really is to tell you I posted a bunch of pictures over the past several months on my photoblog.

Unlikelies

I'm doing another advertisement for my son Travis's new CD cuz it can now be downloaded from iTunes.

Been getting more and more feedback from people - really liking it and ordering more for gift giving.

December

Instead of my knitting post I just mentioned ... when I looked at the last post I noticed the date today - December 13, and remembered it's St Lucia day. In the past we celebrated this day, remembering it's story. And we've passed St Nicholas Day, that's the day we left for Tucson, leaving Heather and Will here in Colorado to "keep the fire burning". And we're in the season of Advent.

I'd post about all this, but it takes time to create new posts. I work hard crafting my writing. But my life is in a different place right now for awhile. I could copy and paste stuff, but you could click on the months in the side bar and read what I'd write this year.

December 13th is a day I have set in my mind to start baking Christmas cookies. Why? because a Swedish author I read years ago did that, and I thought it a nice date to keep. Because recently home from Tucson, I did get my recipes out and have got my grocery list made.

If you look at last year's posts you'd see how I decorate my inside windows. Dawson brought in a tree and it's decorated. Christmas music has been playing, and little Will, playing on the floor is singing away, in his way. (I know, I've got to take and post pictures.)

The weather outside is frightful - blowing snow. But inside, with the stove burning it's delightful. I've been sitting with Mary and Joseph these days. Trying to imagine living in their sandals ...

Picture test

This post is kinda a test. I wanted to post more pictures with the last post of Sarah's Shower, but my pictures wouldn't post. And I still have another post as a draft of knitting projects I've finished and working on, but the pictures won't post. So I'm going to see if doing another post from scratch with adding pics will work. Let's see ...

It worked! This is a photo Dawson took, trying out his new camera in below freezing weather. It was one of his last days of school last week, having really hard finals.

Monte and me were in Tucson AZ during those bitter cold days. Monte doing work at Stan's with visiting geologists from Canada and Norway. I stayed there some (and cooked some) as well as visiting my sister, and got to see one of my brothers.

I'll try another photo Dawson took of me and then copy and paste my knitting project draft into a new post and post the pictures.

Sarah's Baby Shower

Because Sarah's family was here for the Thanksgiving Holiday, they had a baby shower for her and this is a picture of her opening one of her presents.

Family & Thanksgiving Day

As I said before, we went to Travis and Sarah's place for Thanksgiving. Ft Collins, Colorado is 1 1/2 hour drive from us. Sarah's parents, John and Kerry, drove up from Texas. Her sister Annie and husband Aaron flew in from Oregon. Heather, Will, Monte and me drove up mid-day. Dawson drove up later with Splarah and her brother Phil, having had an earlier Thanksgiving meal with Splarah's family at her Grandmother's.


I've not seen Dawson's pictures yet except our family picture he posted on Facebook, so I grabbed the picture from there to post here. All the other pictures I took.


Travis first grilled/smoked the turkey and then finished baking it in the oven. Sarah's feeling quite pregnant, due in a little over a month - she's hugging the cook. Her mom and sister did most of the cooking. Because her family was here, they had a baby shower for her last weekend too, so we drove up again.


I'm posting a picture of some of us playing "Bananagrams" because of wanting to tell of the table we're on. Kerry brought the game and it was so fun that Dawson bought it and we played it here with company Saturday. It's a kind of Scrabble/Boggle game and few to lots of people can play. Aaron made Travis and Sarah their main table. We gave them this cabinet we'd gotten from my grandmother, thinking they'd really use it more than us. The front of the cabinet pulls out and leaves stored inside unfold to lay out on top creating a table as long as maybe 15 feet if needed. And the wonder of it all is it's the same width and height as the table Aaron built for them. So when there's lots of us, the couches are slid over to the dining area and the tables butted together.

Tie-Dye & Will

I finally took pictures and downloaded them ... I said in an earlier post that I'd post pictures of recent tie-dye projects. Since I've not tie-dyed since my teen years (that wonderful hippie era!) I read the new info for review and see what's new. Then I practiced. The goal was curtains Sarah bought for their open stairwell tall window, and I didn't want to practice on them!

I bought a soft 100% cotton queen-sized sheet set - a great thing to practice on. Some parts I swirled and rubber-banded. Some parts I pleated and rubber-banded or wrapped with a waxed string. Some parts I just banded in a circle for the typical tie-dye bulls-eyes. What did I learn? You think you've soaked the material (it was already wetted in a soda ash solution) and no white is visible, and you worry that it's all just soaking together and going to be a solid dark mess.

I left the sheets: top, fitted, and pillow cases in separate plastic bags (and did a pair of socks too - ordered these really soft bamboo socks that I think I'm going to get more of) to sit in a warm spot while Monte and me flew down to drive Heather and Will here to Colorado, stopping and visiting some old friends along the way. Once home I rinsed them, unbanding them ... and oh ... so much white! So I retied them and squirted more colors on and let sit 24 hours, then rinsed and washed them. My original trials got covered so I couldn't really see my patterning, but that's okay. They are just sheets and going to be slept on. The picture is them on the guest bed at Travis and Sarah's (her family came to stay over the Thanksgiving holiday).

At Travis and Sarah's we squirted a lot of colors on paper towels and let dry. Travis narrowed the choice down to four colors. We folded the long curtains in thirds and pleated them and tied and rubber-banded them. It's easier to tie up the centers of long things with the waxed string than try and rubber band them. We're working on a large metal sheet I got years ago at an auto supply store - it's what people put in garages under leaky cars. I use it all the time on the kitchen table with my wet felting and anything else messy. Sarah worked on one curtain and me on the other and we had them laying side-by-side and doing the same color squirted between the bindings so the hanging curtains would have the same striping. Sarah left them in their plastic bags in a bucket for a couple days before rinsing and washing. So we all waited anxious - they just looked dark with no color variation when all wet, and no white showing - we really soaked them! Sarah emailed me so excited about how they'd turned out. I didn't see them till Thanksgiving day.

While I'm at it, I'll post a recent picture of Will. Will usually eats his supper just before us in his little green Bumbo chair (it's from South Africa and Dawson wishes he had one!). We leave him up on the table while we eat and have a gay ole time with him! He's our "center piece"!